


i'm not supposed to speak to strangers (but we've met before)

by Nocturnememory



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Crossdressing, Fairy Tale Elements, Fluff and Crack, M/M, Sort of? - Freeform, Tumblr Prompt, maleficent vibes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:21:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24225775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nocturnememory/pseuds/Nocturnememory
Summary: He watches the boy from afar and the boy grows and grows and yet, does not grow at all quick enough. He’s a wilful thing with a mouth full of sunshine and something sweeter, all candy-apple red, sticky on the tongue.But he’s supposed to be a God-king’s downfall, undoing, the thorn in the immortal side.So, Voldemort watches and thinks,fine, Little Thorn, I’ll show you a prick.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort
Comments: 25
Kudos: 344





	i'm not supposed to speak to strangers (but we've met before)

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文-普通话 國語 available: [【中文翻译】我不该和陌生人说话（但是我们见过）](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27008449) by [Lwnixndk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lwnixndk/pseuds/Lwnixndk)



> tumblr prompt originally posted in 2018. prose-y crack. maleficient-inspired.

* * *

“My Lord, why don’t we just kill him…”

“Because,” Voldemort says. “That’s not how these things go.”

* * *

Once upon—

No, it starts like this:

There’s a sallow-faced man who kneels at the foot of a king, lord, God-in-the-making; he comes with _ill-tidings,_ he says to the floor, his nose nearly touching.

_There’s a boy._

.

He watches the boy from afar and the boy grows and grows and yet, does not grow at all quick enough. He’s a wilful thing with a mouth full of sunshine and something sweeter, all candy-apple red, sticky on the tongue.

But he’s supposed to be a God-king’s downfall, undoing, the thorn in the immortal side.

So, Voldemort watches and thinks, _fine, Little Thorn, I’ll show you a prick._

.

They try to hide him of course, what (god)parents wouldn’t.

Locked in a cottage with two dogs that aren’t really dogs at all. (Although both, he thinks, are really rather feral.)

He watches one of them, a red cape on his shoulders, basket in hand and he thinks, _good Merlin, they aren’t—_

But there’s the faintest sound of _my, what big teeth you have._

And—

_You know what they say about big teeth._

He recoils, lip curling, and turns his attention back to the boy who’s a little thing at the edge of the property; a sweet boy, really, for all that he’s supposed to be something of a god-killer.

A prophecy-boy who sees him in the shadows and has yet to show any sort of fear. (Or self-preservation for that matter, daft thing.) Who hums and chatters to flora and fauna alike, who sits half-buried in the long grasses, and flowers, and weaves them together, who says, _will I have red eyes like you one day?_

 _No,_ Voldemort replies _, unless you have a liking to have one-sixth of a soul._

 _One-sixth a soul!_ The boy cries, his palms grass-stained as he braids flowers stems together. _Will you float away?_

 _Float away,_ Voldemort laughs. _Why would I float away?_

 _Because souls are what weigh us down,_ he says, _my godfathers say so. They’re weighted with all the good or bad we’ve done. So, you must either be terribly good or terribly bad to have one-sixth of a soul._

The boy stands, his knees are grassy-green, knobby skinny things, and he reaches up, tugs at the length of Voldemort’s robe.

He thinks, _don’t bend, you great fool, this boy is your undoing._

But, he bends, and the boy arranges the weave of flowers into some sort of silly, mock crown, and says,

_If you ever need to borrow some soul, I try to be very good._

_._

(If I tell you he keeps the crown until it wilts into a brown thing on his bedside table, you won’t tell anyone will you?)

.

“You’ve been gone a while,” the boy says, looking up from the pages of a book filled with brooms and balls and half-dressed men.

 _Rather phallic,_ he thinks, and wonders how old the boy is again; sprawled out in the grass and sunshine and flowers like some sort of princess waiting for some true-love's kiss.

A gangly-green youth with eyes like grass-stains, or toads or something much more precious than that if he felt like waxing poetic.

Which he doesn’t.

Toad-eyed boy.

“Little Thorn,” Voldemort chides, “I’ve been very busy, I am a king after all.”

“Are you?” the boy smiles and if he were waxing poetic, which he _isn’t_ , the smile would be enough to put the sun to shame.

“Yes,” he sniffs. “A cruel one.”

“A cruel one,” the boy laughs and rolls onto his back. “Cruel for not coming to visit, I think.”

“Are you very lonely?” he asks and means to say, _good, suffer, you silly toad-eyed boy,_ but instead says, (and thinks to bite out his tongue the moment it leaves his mouth,) “Did you miss me, then?”

“Terribly,” he pouts with his candy-apple mouth. “My godfathers are gone quite a lot, something about wolves in the forest, I think. They always come back dirty, I’m not sure what to make of it.”

Voldemort says nothing, and thinks of toads instead of teeth, and moans through the trees he’d rather _never_ hear again.

“Yes,” he says at length _._ “ _Wolves_.”

“And, you’ve been gone,” the boy pouts harder, staring up at him with grass-stained knees and half-naked men beneath his head.

“Looks like you’ve been kept occupied enough,” he smirks, and points to the book.

The boy flushes, “I like flying and…there’s strategy and…stuff.”

 _Stuff,_ he thinks and tells himself that he doesn’t care at all what the boy spends his daydreams on…or spends himself over.

The boy fidgets, sits up and closes the book; red-cheeked and toad-eyed.

“I just meant,” he rushes, “That if you, you know, ever felt like coming by…more… I’d…like that.”

“I’m quite busy, Little Thorn,” he starts, and watches the sunshine fall out of a candy-sweet mouth and adds, “But, I’ll...try.”

(If the smile he gets in parting is something he spends himself over, you won’t tell anyone, will you?)

.

“What are you _wearing?_ ”

“Do you like it?” Harry asks, looking down over himself. “There’s a masquerade at Hogwarts. Hagrid, you know, the woodcutter just over the rise? He was telling me about and well, I thought I’d sneak out, have a bit of fun. No one ever lets me do anything.”

“ _Right_ … And why are you are in a _dress_?” Voldemort takes the boy in, the puffy skirt, the low cut, shimmering neckline displaying ~~lovely, lick-able~~ boney collarbones and the very flat of his chest as he clambers over the wood fence that lines the property.

He thinks he hears a tear, a rip, but it might just be his mind, actually.

“Hagrid said it was going to be fancy and all that, so I thought I should look the part. You know, dress like a prince. I have a little mask and all.”

He pulls out a little eye mask, a little lace-lined thing, that curves over his cheekbones and shows off the plump of his candy-apple lips and the—

Toad colour of his eyes. Stupid boy. Stupid prophecy-boy. God-killer, more like brain-killer—

The boy sticks out a skinny ankle, wiggling his foot. “I even found some slippers in the attic, they’re much more comfortable than they look. Can you believe this is what princes wear—”

“Princesses, Little Thorn. _Princesses_.”

“What?” the boy blinks, all wide-eyed in the dark.

Voldemort sighs, pushing down the glass-slipper, the ~~cute~~ , _hideous_ little foot. “Princesses wear dresses. _Princes_ wear pants, or robes of some sort.”

The boy blinks. And then blinks again.

He hops off the post, the skirt ruffling, puffing out, shining in the moonlight.

“Well that’s bollocks. Who made that rule? I rather like dresses, they’re quite…airy,” he smiles, plucks at the poof of the skirt before looking back at him, something…hopeful in the doe-eyed, silly look he gives him. “Do you like it though, you’ve not said.”

Stupid boy.

“I think you’d be better off returning to your godfathers and not gallivanting about in a dress in the woods at night….and you look—” Voldemort pauses and thinks, _edible,_ but says, “…fine.”

The boy pouts, his bare shoulders slumping, Voldemort would swear he has on glitter, his skin shines like moon-dust, like a little fae-boy in the woods set to lure unsuspecting god-kings to their—

Stupid prophecy-boy. He should have killed him when he was a nothing more than a green-eyed potato in a blanket.

Harry shrugs, and smiles like he knows something a God-king doesn’t— and heads off towards the path that cuts through the forest and leads to Hogwarts.

 _Who thought keeping him so close to the school was a good idea,_ Voldemort thinks. _Should have locked him in a tower._

“Little thorn, there are wolves in the woods, remember?” Voldemort sighs, rubbing his forehead, trying valiantly to not watch the dip of the boy’s spine, the rather indecent cut of the dress along his back.

“You know, people keep _saying_ that, but I’ve never seen them,” he grins, holding his skirts up, to stop it from dragging on the dirt of the path, skinny ankles pale beacons, glass-slippers doing something rather ~~wonderful~~ , horrendous to his calves.

“You’re going to get eaten,” he drawls and tells himself not to follow. Serves the boy right if he dies or gets killed, murdered in the woods like he’s a chit in a red cape.

 _Where’s a wolf when you need one_ , he thinks (and then remembers _my what big teeth you have_ and promptly wonders about _Obliviation.)_

“I should hope so,” the boy mutters and glances at him one last time, long-lashed and more pretty a thing than he has any right to be for a king-killer in a ballgown in the woods and all of what, sixteen?

“I shaved my legs and everything.”

Voldemort chokes.

.

He tells himself not to go.

He does.

(If I tell you he lasted long enough in his resolve to let the boy be eaten for only long enough change, you won’t tell anyone will you?)

.

It’s horrendous.

Gawdy.

 _Embarrassing_.

The boy is champagne-drunk and red-cheeked; a Lolita of a boy with ankles that make Voldemort feel far too much like Achilles (and he wonders how the boy’s legs look beneath the poof of his dress, for Achilles greatest weakness was no more than Patroclus’ thighs.)

He’s half tempted to crawl under the boy’s skirt to find out.

No, he refuses to be so affected by a silly, toad-eyed boy who should be safe in his captive cottage not tipping tipsy into another dance partner.

 _For the love of Merlin_ , he curses and pushes off the pillar and onto the dance floor.

“ _Move_ ,” he hisses, and hexes the other boy’s feet; the boy stumbles away more in fear of the man than spark in his toes.

“Oh,” Harry giggles. “Where’d the other bloke go?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Voldemort drawls. “We’ve been dancing for hours.”

“Oh, isn’t that lovely. Have I been good?”

“You’ll do, I suppose.”

(If I tell you that he brings the boy back to his cottage and spends a moment too long looking at skinny ankles and tipsy-pink cheeks while he settles him into bed, you won’t tell anyone will you?)

.


End file.
